Flashback Friday ~ More Family

We all had so much fun talking or talking trash about siblings that Linda wants to take it a step further this week!

Tell about any grandparents, cousins, or other extended family that was special to you growing up.

This picture, probably one of the last one I have of her that really capture her before she went to that place all elderly people go in that slow journey home, it was taken the year before she died!

My Grandmother has been a familiar topic on my blog from the beginning. She was such a pivotal and important figure in my life. She passed away in 2003, in fact on the 28 of this month she will have been at home with Jesus for seven years.

On of the greatest blessing of my life was having the privilege of being at her side when she drew her last breath. It was just the two of us. She shared so much with me over the course of my life and I feel that it was so appropriate that I got to be there for her at one of the most important moments of her life. Her entry into Heaven. I sat there next to her in my chair and it washed over me that as she let that last breath out Jesus came and ushered her home and I was there! I would not trade that experience for anything in the whole world.

When I was a very little girl, before my parents divorced. We lived in Ohio. My mom worked so my grandmother would take care of me during the day. I don't remember much about that time because I was still a toddler, but I remember sitting at my grandmothers kitchen table watching her peel peaches or apples listening to her tell me stores of when I was little girl. She would tell me of the play vacuum cleaner, you remember the ones with the plastic dome and the wooden popping balls that bounced around when you moved it back and forth, I had one. I would go behind my grandmother as she vacuumed the house and follow in her footsteps cleaning the carper right behind her. She would give me my own dust rage and I followed right behind her. Whatever she did I got to do too! I do have very vivid memories of standing on a step stool at the kitchen sink side by side with my grandmother washing dishes. She would let me wash the spoons, but I wasn't allowed to wash anything sharp, so no knives or forks for me.

I remember my grandma washing my hair in the kitchen sink. She would sit me up on the counter and I would lay down with my head over the sink. She would wash my hair and then use the Breck Cream Rinse. She would take the warm water and fill up a measuring cup and then pour a few cap fulls of the cream rinse in the water and give it a quick stir and then pour it over my head. After she was done she would sit me on a chair by the radiator in the kitchen and prop an umbrella behind my chair. The heat from the radiator rose up and then was directed back down at my head from the umbrella so it was like being in a beauty salon. I remember sitting in that kitchen chair with my feet dangling, towel draped around my shoulder, holding onto the handle of the umbrella waiting for my hair to dry.

Y’all I could go on and on and on…..but that will do for today's trip down grandma lane!

Do you have any particular childhood memories (good OR bad!) of times spent with your grandparents?

How funny is this, I was just telling my husband and daughter the other night of a memory I have of a trip to visit my grandparents. My sister and I were semi seasoned travelers when we were in elementary school. Sometime we would drive up as a family, ten hours in my mom’s orange dodge dart…not fun at all! Other times mom would put us on a plane and wave us off to be met at the airport by my grandparents. We did this a few times that I remember. I have one specific memory of flying to my grandparent for a summer vacation. We were flying by ourselves and there was a layover. If this happen now a days I am sure it would make the national news but back in the dark ages it was not even a blip on the radar. I am sure that who ever was supposed to be watching out for me and by sister dropped the ball. We saw everyone else getting off the plane so we figured we should get off too. We walked off the airplane hand in hand and went out into the terminal to see a completely deserted airport. I remember thinking “Where are Grandma and Grandpa?” well we walked around for a few minutes and then I began to get alarmed. I think I just grabbed my sister and headed back on to the plan and who ever was supposed to be watching us never even knew that we had gotten off the plane. Can you imagine that happening today?

Do you still keep up with cousins, aunts & uncles, etc.?

I have a more than few cousins on both sides of my family. I have just completely given up trying to keep up with all the cousins on my husbands side of the family. He has four siblings who all have had multiple marriages with multiple children from various marriages, so I just don't go there, it is just to hard to keep up with who is who!

My mom has a brother who lives in Ohio and they have three boys. We were sort of close in age but now that we have all grown up we have gone our separate adult ways. I have hooked up with all of them on Facebook so I do get to keep in touch with them in that way. One of my cousins now has his own family so there are a few 2nd cousins thrown in there for good measure. My Uncles family structure was so different from ours, when they would come for a visit or if we would go up to see my grandmother it always seemed like we were walking into a war zone. With three boys and very little parental restraints it was usually a free-for-all!

My dad has a brother and a sister, but given the lack of involvement we had with him when we were little I had no contact with his parents at all, and even less with his siblings. I do however have regular contact with one of my cousins from his side of the family. Several years ago he came to visit and then decided he wanted to stay and live in the greater Atlanta area. From that point on he was a regular fixture around our family gatherings. He has now moved out west and has started his own family and they have a sweet little dark haired girl that will steal you heart in a second.

 

Well that does it for me, Flashing Back can be such fun!

Y’all head over to Mocha with Linda for more memories!

Blessing and have a great weekend!

R